


Absolution

by IrreWilderer



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst, F/M, NSFW, Smut, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 17:15:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5214170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrreWilderer/pseuds/IrreWilderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel and (ex-Legion/ex-Catholic)F!Courier deal with religious philosophy, guilt and sexual frustrations in the aftermath of the White Leg's destruction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Monday

The old ranger station sat quietly, avoided by the tribals and crumbling with time. Like all pre-war buildings, it was a hard reminder of reality when the clean waters and plentiful vegetation tricked one into thinking that Zion was a complete paradise. Fitting that the Courier should be the one to make it her home.

Or was it? With a soft smile on his lips and Joshua's words in his ear, Daniel approached the building. He noted the section of stretched gecko skin drying in the sun and the smoke trailing from the chimney of her new home. The Courier always was proficient.

He knocked on the front door and she opened it. The Courier, Vay, laughed quietly at the sight of him and then moved to the side, allowing him entrance.

"The place looks nice," Daniel commented conversationally as he eyed some laundry hanging from ropes about the ceiling. Other than that he could see that she had made a real home for herself, gathering what furniture she could into something that resembled a living room, couches and chairs all in their places. There was even a vase filled with broc flower buds sitting on a table in the middle. This desperate attempt at domesticity made Daniel ache with pity for her. After all, this isolation was because of him.

"If I'd have known I was having company, I'd have cleaned up," Vay answered just as chattily, moving books and papers off of the worn couch. With a wave of her arm she invited him to sit, and once they were settled across from each other, the Courier spoke again. "Why in the Hell are you here?"

Daniel sat back in his seat, draped an arm across the back of the couch. "To extend the olive branch."

Again the Courier laughed. "Oh, wow. So my banishment is lifted, then? I'm allowed to leave Purgatory?"

"It's amazing that I didn't notice it before," Daniel shook his head. He looked at her charmingly from beneath the brim of his hat. "Joshua told me about your past."

"The past I didn't want you to know about." Vay raised her brow and sighed. "He's got no problem blabbing about my deal with the Devil, but he couldn't keep his mouth shut about that."

"I don't understand why you wanted it kept a secret," Daniel said. "I hardly see how your past affiliation with Caesar was less shameful than the fact that you used to be a Christian."

"I'm not... ashamed." The Courier stood and began pacing. "It's just that I'm not Catholic anymore. I didn't want you asking me a million questions about it. And the last time we really seriously talked about anything, it was about what to do with the White Legs. Who, by the way, still have a presence in the rest of the valley in case your scouts haven't mentioned it."

"I know." Daniel nodded, stood and walked over to her. Placing his hands on her shoulders he stopped her distracted fidgeting. "It was inevitable that there would be a few stragglers."

"I just thought you'd be mad," Vay admitted, looking up at him with her big sad eyes. "I figured that if it was a Gentile siding with Joshua, you'd be more okay with that than me being a Christian and siding with him. Because that would mean I was a bad Christian who was willing to damn their souls. You basically said that if I was religious, then I'd understand your point of view. I still think you were wrong."

Daniel's hands fell to his sides. "What is done is done. I've accepted it."

"But I guess now that you know I used to say a couple Hail Marys and sing some psalms from time to time, you think that I should be forgiven." The Courier turned her back on him and put some distance between them. "I'm not looking for absolution, Daniel. My conscience is totally clear."

"Perhaps," Daniel shrugged. His tone verged playful. "But don't you want me to try saving you?"

The girl looked back at him, frowning. Daniel knew that wasn't fair; he knew that she cared about him.

"Come back with me to the Narrows. Your tent is still up." Daniel held out his hand apologetically. "It would make Joshua happy."

"No." Vay crossed her arms. "I'll stay here. It's my punishment."

Daniel returned to his seat on the couch. "I thought you said your conscience was clear."

"Well, sure, I think that. But you don't." Vay followed him and flopped down in her own seat. "You and Joshua both, probably. You would be all too happy if I were to beg for forgiveness. You want me to seek absolution. You want me to get on my knees and cry out for salvation. And Joshua..."

"What is it you think Joshua wants?" Daniel asked curiously.

"He understands my past better than you do," Vay explained. "I did terrible things. Maybe not what Joshua did, but... I deserve to be burned, too."

"Joshua would never wish that upon you, Vay," Daniel shook his head. "That's very callous of you. And besides, he got what he wanted. Myself and the Sorrows have remained here. Zion is ours. Joshua is content. The question is what do you want. You haven't left, though we have given you the means to do so. I thought you were crazy before, attacking bands of White Legs all by yourself. But you keep running these crazy risks. That episode with the cazador? You nearly died."

Vay let the man continue as he was, scolding her like a child which he so loved to do.

"I think you want to be forgiven. You were raised by Church morals, even though the Catholics are generally corrupt and certainly misguided." Daniel shook himself out of his digression. "Still: that kind of up-bringing does impart a certain set of ideals."

"Please stop throwing that in my face," Vay pleaded. "This is why I didn't want to tell you about it. Believe me when I say I am not that person anymore."

"And you're not a member of the Legion anymore either," Daniel countered, finally coming to the point he'd wanted to make. "It's up to you who you want to be. But, Vay, I know you want to be good. You want to make things right but you don't know how, so you'll punish yourself with suicidal missions and by keeping yourself locked up in here."

"What am I supposed to do?" the Courier asked. "I can't go back to the Mojave. The only way to make things right with the NCR would be to die. That's not punishment, that's vengeance. And I kind of don't want to die. And you guys... I lied to you. Not a little white lie, either. I came here to kill Joshua. I can still remember making plans, watching him and you, waiting for the opportunity to stick a knife in your back. I remember how angry I was at him for no reason. Caesar said I should hate Joshua, so I did. Yeah, sure, I get that Joshua doesn't care about it, but I do." The girl looked down at her hands. "It's been so long since I've had to take responsibility for anything. I don't know how to make up for any of it."

Daniel left his seat and placed himself beside her. His voice was all softness and comfort. "When you were a child and did something wrong, what did you do?"

Vay smirked. "I got caught and then got the strap."

Letting his head fall back a bit, Daniel rolled his eyes. "Of course. Catholics are sadists, of course they hit you."

"And I prayed!" Vay shot back cheekily. "'Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended You and I detest all my sins because I fear the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell-'"

"And what did they do to you for sounding so sarcastic?" Daniel grinned.

"Started the whole thing all over again," the Courier laughed. "But believe me, I felt totally repentant."

"Maybe I need to put you over my knee then," Daniel suggested.

The Courier looked away. Her childhood had not been a happy time and it was hard for her to talk about. Daniel making light of it hurt, but Daniel making light of how he knew she felt about him was even worse.

"I'm serious," Daniel continued. He turned, leaned his elbow on the back of the couch and cradled his cheek in the palm of his hand. "If you felt like that helped you before, then it might help you now. Who am I to argue if you find it cathartic?"

His casual posture and dark blue eyes were far too distracting and the nightmare of her youth disappeared entirely. "Maybe," was all the Courier was able to half-heartedly answer, still not entirely sure Daniel had just suggested he spank her. It definitely sounded like the sort of thing her mind would make up. And she'd obviously been sarcastic when she said it had made her feel repentant.

Standing, the man quickly undid the belt of his buckle and pulled it free of his pants. The Courier sat there stunned.

"Come on," Daniel said, folding the belt in half and sitting down. "Stand up."

Placing his hat on the back of the couch, the man allowed the Courier some time to overcome her shock. Vay had spent restless nights dreaming of the slightest amount of intimacy with Daniel, and here they were. She had stopped hoping due to, at first, his religious convictions, and then the strain of everything else that had happened in Zion. Of course, this wasn't exactly intimacy. In fact, intimacy was the farthest thing on Daniel's pious mind.

Or so Vay thought.

The girl draped herself over his lap, noting how exposed she felt, the heat of his body against hers, and the ever-present want she had whenever she was around him became a soft throbbing. Burying her face into the couch cushion, the Courier tried to calm herself down.

"How many of these do you think will do?" Daniel asked, readying the belt in his hand and unabashedly fixing his gaze on her ass. The girl was beautiful and, for the moment, utterly his. His to admire and his to save.

Daniel's desire for Vay had grown over her time in Zion. He found her physically attractive, but the man had learned long ago to control urges based on lust. Vay liked Joshua but had always gravitated towards Daniel, seeking his approval, listening to him talk. Perhaps it was because the ex-Legionary girl saw too much common ground with the ex-Legate. Daniel didn't care. And maybe Joshua was right: perhaps Daniel was using the Courier to forget about what he'd lost in the ashes of New Canaan. But Daniel didn't care about that, either. Short-comings made him human, and nothing made him feel more like a man than time spent with the Courier.

"I don't know," Vay replied hesitantly. "Um, ten?"

Daniel sighed. "You're a lot more forgiving than me."

The Courier moaned.

"Remember, this is to take the weight off of your chest, not to add more for depraved ideas," Daniel reminded her with private irony, resting the belt so slightly on her buttocks. It took all his strength not to run his hand over her curves, but this wasn't for him: it was so the girl could find some peace. He would only take what small pleasure he could in it without compromising himself, or her, entirely.

Daniel snapped his wrist. The sharp sound echoed off the walls and the sudden sting of the belt caused her legs to jerk back.

"Ah!"

"No kicking," Daniel ordered as he dealt another blow. The Courier cried out but kept her legs as still and straight as she could. They quivered a little, but she obeyed.

"That's good," the man approved, slapping his black leather belt against her ass a little lighter. "Very good."

He could only imagine how red her skin began to get under her thin cargo pants as he struck her again and again. Six, seven, eight. He measured how much strength to put behind each smack by how hard she breathed upon impact. Nine, ten. Every time the belt connected she gasped for the pain, but he could clearly hear the want in her voice, too. Her tone was deep with passion and heightened by pain. And every time he stopped, the Courier arched her back, quietly begging for more.

Daniel rested for a moment, his fingers splaying out over the thinly covered skin of her right buttock, noting how hot the flesh beneath was, and her whole body shook at the feeling of his hand on her ass.

"You're not enjoying this, are you, Vay?"

The Courier swallowed hard. She was hot, throbbing, and very aware of how wet she was, if aware of anything at all. Vay feared Daniel would sense it because his hand was so close to her sex. She arched her back although she hadn't meant to. She just wanted more. And his hand was so damned close to her cunt.

"N... no."

Daniel's fingers lightly, so lightly, brushed back and forth over the thin material covering her ass, both of them wishing desperately her pants were around her ankles. "Good."

Daniel slowed his pace and put more strength into his strikes. The corner of his mouth twitched into a smile as the Courier squealed and sighed upon each spank. Sixteen, seventeen. Knowing he could make her feel this good was exhilarating. She mewed softly as though urging him on to make her scream. But catching himself smiling caused him to feel his first pang of regret. 

"Almost done," the man said. Daniel was indulging the both of them, and anything further would be too heavy a price on their immortal souls.

The Courier writhed under each smack, the numbness of her skin nearly outweighed by the heat of it. She gasped out of sexual frenzy and fear of Daniel's disapproval over her tone. Again, again, again. Suddenly there was no time to brace herself, no time to collect herself or catch her breath. They came in quick succession for some time. She couldn't register one blow from another. Again. Again.

"Oh, God," Vay trembled as the man put all the strength he could behind the last strokes. Suddenly this wasn't so sexy. It hurt. She was hurt. Her sex had long ago stopped pulsing as she clenched her ass against the pain. The Courier wanted to promise never to do 'it' again, but she didn't know what 'it' was. "Daniel..."

"It has to hurt," the man said gruffly, now enjoying it as little as she was. The things this woman pushed him towards were base, utterly sinful. "There's a fine line between pleasure and pain, we have to know on which side we stand." 

And then the sounds of his belt against her had ceased. It was finished. The girl lay there completely still, in what Daniel thought was something like lust.

"Sit up," Daniel said and the Courier crawled into the corner of the couch. He didn't notice until he'd put his belt back into place that she was silently crying. Daniel went to the side of the couch and crouched down. "It's alright now." He tucked the hair that had fallen into her eyes behind her ear and stroked her cheek. "You're forgiven."

Vay looked at the lines around his mouth, the thick lashes that framed his deep blue eyes, the softness of all his features. Soft features, strong convictions. "Get out," she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.

Daniel was taken aback. "Whatever you are feeling, tell me."

There were so many men who liked the feeling of power over people. Not just over boys or girls, or young women who couldn't go to anyone else for help. The NCR government was comprised entirely of these people. Not just men, of course. Women, too. There had been women at the orphanage she'd grown up in, and they had made chores unbearable, unending. The entire corrupt bureaucracy of the NCR was mirrored in the corrupt, unfeeling hierarchy of the Church which had run the Courier's world since her parents had died. When she'd tried to complain about how the nuns treated them, she'd had the leader of the congregation to show her how wrong she was to complain. That's how she had first learned about men and their taste for power. And other things.

"Please talk to me." Daniel moved closer, Vay moved back.

Daniel wasn't one of those men. He was goodness incarnate and only wanted to help her. The Courier wasn't crying anymore.

"I'm okay," Vay finally said, seeing how sad and confused the man looked. "Sorry about that. I'm exhausted, I guess. Emotionally."

"But do you feel better?" Daniel asked.

"Yes," the Courier lied with a pretty smile.

Daniel had invited her to supper at Angel Cave, and Joshua would have in fact been very happy to see her, but she wouldn't go. Vay crawled into bed, dirtied the thread-bare sheets with the shoes she'd neglected to shed, and went to sleep.


	2. Tuesday

The Courier spent the night tossing in her bed after the sighs of the old building had woken her up. Vay replayed the previous day's events over and over, altering them here, making some of it last longer, but the mounting sexual frustration eventually peaked and she tried to back to sleep, picturing un-sexy things like the black mold clinging to the walls of the ranger station. The Courier didn't relieve herself of the heat she felt when picturing Daniel with his long fingers and tortured smile because, well, she didn't do that. Thank you, sexually-repressed Catholic standards.

The cabin smelt of perking coffee as she took down the cleaned clothes hanging from string, random articles she'd found out in Zion, most of it crap, but one dress in particular was rather pretty and to her tastes. The Courier thought of Veronica and her quest for the perfect dress. The Courier thought of the home she could never return to.

The mechanisms of the front door began to grind and the Courier twirled around, pistol moving from its place on the coffee table to the palm of her hand in an instant.

"It's me!" Daniel said, hands raised in submission.

"And 'me' usually knocks," Vay pointed out, putting the gun down. She walked over as the man carefully closed the door, shutting the bright morning light out. "Well?"

"You said that you would join us last night." Daniel folded his arms across his chest and put on that mask of disapproval which looked so adorable on him. "I thought something had happened."

"I slept all day. Really." Vay turned away, pulled the last of the clothing down and piled it high on one of the couches. "Plus I didn't feel like coming over."

"It was a bad idea," Daniel observed, walking over and going to work on an overly large t-shirt.

"No, Daniel, it was fine," Vay lied, watching him handle her clothing and feeling far too touched by the gesture.

Daniel, of course, was not convinced. Dropping the shirt into a shapeless mass with the rest of the laundry, he pulled the Courier to sit down with him on the other couch.

"If you are still feeling guilty, I promise you that talking with Joshua will help," Daniel said, taking her hands in his. Today was going to be a day where no lines were crossed. He was simply going to be the guiding hand who had often touched her platonically or patted her hair without any tainted thoughts about it. "I've forgiven you. You know that. But I think you need to hear it from him. Don't worry, Joshua's capacity for Christian charity is even greater than mine. He holds no grudges."

"Christian charity is a funny thing," the Courier stated, staring at her small hands in his. Fine dark hair ghosted over Daniel's knuckles; the nails were clean and well kept.

"Sometimes it's the only thing we have," said the man, surprised that this was the dialogue she'd wanted to open. Of course, Daniel was more than happy to oblige. The day that the Courier was willing to discuss faith was a day to mark on the calendar. "Sometimes it's the thing that lets us let go of our anger at all."

Vay looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"I can't tell you how I reacted when I first found out you came here by Caesar’s orders," Daniel answered. "I was filled with such hatred. I... But Joshua reminded me of my duty to forgive and love. Christian charity and compassion are why I'm here at all."

"That's not exactly the awe-inspiring speech I was looking for," Vay winced. 

Daniel smiled his soft smile. "Don't you see? Anyone else would look for vengeance. Because of God, I've seen the light to look past all of that."

"Sure, because you know I used to be Catholic and think that makes me special or something." Vay let his hands fall away and sat back in the corner of the couch. "The reason you came here at all yesterday was because Joshua told you I used to be Catholic, went to Mass, all that crap. If you didn't know that I used to be religious would you even have forgiven me? If I was still a Gentile to you, instead of some lost lamb, would you be here at all?"

Daniel frowned. "What is this about? I want to help you. But I did not come here to hear my convictions referred to as 'that crap'."

"Not everyone who has followed the word of God is holy," the Courier quietly rebuked.

"I suppose that's true," Daniel consented, now seeing the source of her anger. "Do you mean yourself?"

"No! I mean, I'm not. It's just..."

Daniel laughed joylessly at the girl who was getting herself so worked up. "You have to stop blaming yourself. Your past is just that: passed. The person you were-"

"You don't know anything about my past," Vay growled. "And you don't know what I was."

"I can see that it's haunting you. But Caesar is far away. He no longer has control over you."

"Argh!"

The man watched Vay dig her hands into her hair, and then try to regain her composure only to loose it again. Daniel reached out, hoping to return her to sanity.

"Calm down."

"Don't touch me." The Courier jumped up and went to the fireplace to stare into the black coals. Daniel followed her. "There's nothing special about God. You think you have this unquestionable power because you know what's 'right'. And so you think it's okay to... abuse, and-"

"I didn't mean to hurt you yesterday," Daniel apologized. He put his arms around her, hoping it would calm her seemingly directionless frustrations. "I thought I was helping. I was wrong. But don't think my failures, my own stupidity, is cause to curse God. Please talk to me."

This innocent intimacy was something she had enjoyed often when first coming to Zion and she leaned into it for the moment. Daniel had always treated her like a girl, someone to guide and reward, and these affections were what had made her fall so hard for him. No one had ever taken the time to try and help her grow: it had always been orders after orders, delivery after delivery. But right now the Courier's childhood was too close and awful for her to submit to anything like this for long.

"Okay, fine. I'll talk. I have a great story about Christian charity that I'm sure you'll appreciate," Vay said, looking up at him. He stared right into her eyes with a quiet expression and a hungry soul. She realized that Daniel cared about her as much as she did about him but wouldn't admit it to anyone, even himself, too virtuous and so dedicated to his faith as he was. If Vay could have done anything to make Daniel see the hypocrisy of the Church, she would have done it.

Pushing Daniel away, the Courier snatched her pistol up from the coffee table and then turned back. If he knew what had broken her faith, maybe he'd abandon his own.

"What are you doing?"

"It's part of the story," Vay smiled sweetly. "Call it a prop."

Daniel was filled with agitation as she put the gun to his chest. Part of him had always feared that she may still be loyal to the Legion.

"For this story you have to be paralyzed with fear," Vay explained politely but firmly. "Understand? I'll put it in my holster, but you don't move, got it?"

Daniel couldn't have been more confused, but this didn't last long. He watched her quick fingers release his buckle and pull down the zipper of his pants. He tried to grab her wrists, but Vay pushed his hands away.

"I'll kill you," she said, continuing her work. "You know I can. My pistol is right here. Don't move."

Daniel breathed deep as he felt the pressure of his pants slacken. The Courier slid to her knees and brought his jeans down around his ankles. 

"You slut," Daniel whispered. He needed to play the part of the pious alter-boy. Of course he wanted this, he couldn't deny that, but the circumstances were abhorrent. His body betrayed his mind while his mind reeled over the fact that the Courier could be so lewd.

"Says the man with the hard-on," Vay laughed boldly. Their eyes met for a second and they both realized that this was the most honest they'd been with each other since first meeting.

Pulling down his thin, white underwear, his member jumped out at her, impressively thick but not terribly long, and surrounded by a bed of unruly black curls. She let out hot breath from the back of her throat and his hardening cock twitched into a full straining erection. The man gasped.

"Damned whore." 

Vay tongued the tip and laughed a little, the vibrations humming through Daniel's body. "Just call me Mary Magdalene."

Playing with the curves, she twirled her tongue around the head of his dick, tasting the eager precum. Putting her lips round, she sucked his member as hard as she could, bringing it into the back of her throat. Daniel let out a wail and pressed his hands against the wall he was shoved up against, hardly able to stand the firm, wet pressure or her leisurely pace. Vay slowly brought her lips from the back of his cock to the tip and then moved back down the shaft as fast as possible, choking a little in the process. Vay heard the man thump his head against the wall in reaction to the sound of her gagging.

Daniel watched her head bob back and forth once she'd gotten into a steady rhythm, the sight of it as stimulating as the actual act. His hands snaked into her hair, caressing her scalp, feeling where her skull had been pieced back together. With his member in her mouth, and this girl fulfilling the duties of a lover or wife, Daniel was just a man, not some guilt-ridden missionary. As the lust drove every other thought from his mind, he found peace he hadn't known in a while.

The Courier continued as fast and as hard as she could for some time, the sloshing sound of his cock in her mouth just audible above the man's moaning. Vay's jaw started aching too quickly and she accidently scraped her teeth softly against his velvety length. Wincing, she brought the whole of it back into her mouth, but despite the misstep she soon tasted his salt and sin and once she'd swallowed, moved back.

Daniel slid down, the stars disappearing from his eyes, his whole body gasping and shuddering. Vay stood. She looked at him and his expression was that of a man content.

"That's part of the story," the Courier stated, pleased by the complete serenity she'd brought him, and now hesitant to take that all away. "Do you want to hear the rest?"

The man nodded silently. Vay sighed.

"I was raised in a Catholic orphanage in Shady Sands. There wasn't a lot of us: five boys, six girls. I can't imagine how we would have suffered without that place, having no where else to go, us children. Every day we prayed and thanked the Lord, and gave credit to the nuns, praising them for their compassion and wonderful Christian charity."

Daniel sensed a punch line was forthcoming as the girl's sarcasm was fairly obvious, and he wasn't wrong.

"The nuns hated us girls. Our chores were terrible, so much worse than what the boys got. I scrubbed pews for ten hours once. It was busywork, of course, so the nuns could go and do what they wanted without having to watch me. And the baking! Damn, I forgot about that until now. A girl younger than me, she was maybe eight years old at the time, burnt half her face in one of the ovens. I ran away when I was fourteen, right after they decided we girls were too concerned with our appearance and all but shaved us bald. But the NCRP, the police force, brought me back kicking and screaming. I was taken to the priest who headed our congregation: Father Gabriel was his name. I told him about how we were mistreated, ignored, and about the rats in our beds and how the boys were given all the beef to eat. Father Gabriel decided to make an example out of me." 

The Courier checked to see the effect of her words. Daniel looked far away. "So I got fifty lashes. The others were brought into his room to watch. The young boys laughed. The older boys just grinned. Guess they liked the view. And then they were sent out of the room to their lessons or chores or whatever. But I had to stay. Father Gabriel made me get on my knees and he undid his neatly ironed black pants and forced himself into my mouth. I had to suck his cock every day after my lashes. And I got fifty lashes every day for two months. That's my story about Christian charity, Daniel."

Tears fell down his cheeks. It had always been enough to know how cruelly she must have been treated as a woman in the Legion (from what little Joshua would conjecture, anyways), but this was too much. These demons she had buried had been brought to the surface because of him. That which he loved the most in this world was the thing that tormented her above everything else. And so Daniel cried.

The Courier left the lodge, running to where she did not know, so she didn't have to look at what she had done to him.


	3. Wednesday

The tribals had rituals and chants for the rain. The women sang loudly as they readied their homes against the threatening downpour, creating walls and roofs out of animal skins or old tarps, planks of wood, anything that could be salvaged.

Creating a world out of recovered pre-war relics might have been a practice perfected by the White Legs, but when the rains came like they did, people became not only desperate but creative. They had to. Everything would wash away into the rivers if it wasn't tied down or covered. The rains were both a blessing and a curse. Daniel couldn't count the times he'd treated tropical ulcers (jungle rot) or dealt with health problems brought on by mould.

His tent had been fortified some time ago, just as the afternoon sun dipped behind the dark approaching clouds, and now Daniel was moving from one family to another, helping them secure extra layers of protection to their homes. A last final crack sounded as though it might split the sky and then all of the Heavens fell down upon them.

"Hey!" came a familiar cry just as Daniel finished tying a canvas of gecko skin over the top of an almost-tipi. Although his hands had been working only inches away from his face, the thick torrents of rain had made it almost impossible to see what he was doing. The tribal to whom the tent belonged thanked the man and joined his family inside. Daniel turned and pulled the Courier out of the storm and into safety.

His home was neat and organized. The floor was made of woven reeds and grasses, warm cotton blankets were piled high in a corner, and his small number of belongings were lined neatly against the new plastic walls.

"That is a lot of water," the Courier observed conversationally after following Daniel into the enclosure. They knelt down for the low-hanging ceiling, both of them soaked through. "I mean, there's gotta be a word for all the rain, right?"

Daniel studied her posture and casual tone, trying to gauge her reasons for being there. Taking off his hat, he ran a hand through his wet, curling hair. "Monsoon."

"What?"

Despite himself, Daniel felt a subtle bemusement over her comical look of confusion. "Monsoon. And that's English. At least, the word appropriated for English. The local word is much longer and much more descriptive."

"Huh." Vay saw that the rain had caused Daniel's eye-lashes to cling together prettily and she ached upon noticing it. "Seems like a waste of breath to say anymore than 'buckets'. As in, 'it's raining buckets out there'."

"No, it's poetry," Daniel assured her. "'The waters that bend the boughs', I believe, is the basic English translation."

If the Courier had a response it became irrelevant as the man began unfastening the buttons of his plaid cotton shirt. Peeling it off his body, he held it out to her.

"Just throw that out the door. You should take off your outer layers as well."

"I'll take my chances with the pneumonia," was Vay's answer, and her reward was a very disappointed look which disappeared when Daniel pulled his soaking tee-shirt over his head. What was then revealed was a thin white undershirt where the colouring of flesh poked out from under a few patches of the wet material.

"That many layers and you'd die from heat back in the Mojave," the Courier commented, staring at his body.

"It's a part of the faith," Daniel remarked dryly as he put on a new tee-shirt, not exactly in the mood to discuss religious regulations, least of all his temple garment. "Why are you here, Vay?"

The memory of what she had done had haunted her all night and hounded her all morning. Wishing to make a point of the Church's corruption the Courier had actually made a victim of Daniel when her misguided attempt became mixed up with her longing for the man. In the end, the only point Vay had ended up making was that she was no where near being as rehabilitated as she had thought she'd been. Her retort, meant to be an apology, was half-hearted and hollow. "I don't even know what to say about yesterday."

"Did you lie? Was everything you told me true?"

The Courier looked up, surprised. "No. I mean no, I didn't lie. It was all true."

Daniel rolled his thoughts around in his head like dice, waiting to see which truth to reveal or thought to divulge. "I was afraid, Vay. Of you. I imagine there was a time when waving a gun around in someone's face was what you might have called fun. I was afraid you'd regressed into that girl who came here to kill Joshua. And the rest, well, that is something that should be unforgivable."

"'Should be'?" Vay repeated. "Oh. I see. You really are a saint, aren't you?"

The man's chest swelled at the compliment, but then he imagined her no doubt dubious opinion of saints. "No. I want to help you heal, and find some peace with God. I can't imagine that would be possible without my forgiving you." Daniel handed her some dry clothing from his pack, all of which would be far too big and hang charmingly off her little limbs. "Put this on. I'd like to talk to you about the abuse, and how it affected your faith. What happened to you was wrong. I want to show you the true grace and goodness of God's love if you'll let me."

The man turned his back on her and watched the fading light beyond the tent wall. The loud thundering and turbulent rains were hardly interrupted by the soft sounds of the Courier shedding her soaked clothing.

Daniel's eyes widened as all at once the girl's arms were wrapped around his middle, entwining about him like the embrace of a serpent. Vay's breath breezed over his neck, her body pressed warmly against his. She rested her chin on his shoulder and Daniel's startled gaze met her sad eyes as he looked behind himself.

"I don't want God, Daniel. There is no peace with him for me." Vay frowned and tightened her embrace. Her voice trembled, these mere words unable to express all she felt. "I want you."

Daniel saw that she was naked from the waist up, although pressed so solidly against him as she was the man could only feel her modest breasts against his back. Knowing how uncovered she was sent spikes of desire through him that were equally arousing as the thought of how much she wanted him. This fragmented girl wanted him to make her feel like a woman. She was begging for it.

"I can't," Daniel said. His hands met hers and he held them, contrary to proper etiquette which would have been throwing her off. "I can't. I belong to God."

"But you want me, don't you?" the Courier asked. Daniel twisted around in her grip, forced her away from him, and Vay fell on to her back, her wet hair plastered to her skin and hardly covering her nakedness at all.

"Yes," Daniel answered. He gazed at her small breasts and softly sculpted stomach, noting birthmarks and small scars. Reaching over her, he grabbed the dry shirt and draped it over her. "But I can't. And you know why."

The Courier held the piece of clothing against her body as she sat up. "The only reason you're over-looking what happened yesterday is because you wanted it," she half-realized, half-accused.

"It's not so depraved as that. I can falter, I'm far from perfect." A painful, thoughtful sigh. "But you must stop this. If you continue, I'm going to have to ask you to stay away. Don't make me do that. Please."

Panicked by that thought, the Courier dropped the shirt and threw her arms around his neck, pressing her lips against his, trying to pull him down on top of her. Daniel held her up to keep the both of them from tumbling down into transgression, but as soon as his hands were on her waist he was pulling her closer, arms crushing her into him, composure completely gone.

Light trails of reddened flesh appeared as Daniel grabbed at her hungrily, groping her back, kneading her skin, every second of contact driving away reality. The Courier's eyes rolled back in her head as Daniel kissed a damp pathway across her cheek, along her jaw, down her neck. He desperately claimed her throat with such force that Vay found it hard to breath, nipping at her skin as he did so, tasting rain and salt, feeling the sounds of her yearning humming across his lips. Moaning, the Courier held his head in a hesitant grip, fingers caressing his wet black hair, fearing every second that he might come to his senses while she was quickly loosing hers.

Moving back towards her mouth, Daniel arrested it with abandon and authority, pulling her head back to allow better access as he slid his tongue inside her mouth, probing her deep and eagerly. The Courier sighed against his mouth, the vibrations stirring darker wants within him. Vay rolled her fingers against the growing erection hidden in his jeans, but Daniel snatched her hand away and forced it awkwardly, painfully, behind her back. Hearing her cry out drove Daniel on for a moment, one lingering second as he growled and ground his member into her hip bone. Lights danced across his eyelids while he favoured the girl's bottom lip, kissing and sucking. Vay shuddered as clean nails scraped across the small of her back.

Suddenly Daniel ended the open-mouthed kiss with a light peck to her cheek and then he buried his face into the nook of her neck, holding her upright as the breathless couple heaved for oxygen. The Courier shivered from the feeling of his cock pressed against her stomach and the throbbing from within that had never been more excruciating.

"No more," Daniel whimpered into Vay's hair. He pulled back, his own dark locks tussled. Holding her face, his thumb brushed at her tears, his saliva and God's rain which was slick on her skin. "Damnit, Vay. Just... put on some clothes. It's getting late, and you can stay here, but that's it. That's all I can give you. I can't do this."

Daniel looked away as the girl did as he had requested. He handed her some of the thick cotton blankets of greys, blues, plaids, all souvenirs pulled from the ashes of New Canaan and brought to Zion for renewed purpose. The rains hammered a steady beat against the tent walls as the Courier, feeling betrayed and sad, settled down to sleep.

"Do you mind if I read?" Daniel asked, making nearly inaudible contended sighs as he lay down. "While there's a little light left."

"Go ahead," the girl grunted.

"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion," Daniel read, driving out the relentless sounds of the rain. "On the willows there we hung up our lyres, for there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion!' How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither..."

Vay's hands snaked over her stomach, feeling the fibres of the man's shirt which she wore. The Courier imagined it was his beautiful, hesitant hands moving over her. Daniel spoke passages from the tent's edge and yet he was so close, stroking her stomach, abdomen, lower, lower-

The Courier sighed in frustration, clenched her fists, wishing so hard to undo the knot within herself.

"What is it?" Daniel asked. Vay flipped over and stared at him. The pious bastard who couldn't appreciate it had reached orgasm thanks to her the day before and she had to suffer being unbelievably horny now. The bastard.

"Can you read to yourself? I'm tired."

"Of course. You should have said something."

Eventually the sun passed away but the rain did not cease. The Courier's ebbing lust gave way to flickering moments of sleep. Her frustrations and dissatisfaction with Daniel melted into the usual desire to just be comfortable around him and enjoy what she could get, which for the moment was listening to the soft sounds as he moved around in his bed. 

As the midnight hour approached the Courier was nearly passed out, gone to where she could dream and forget. But then her calm was shattered.

"Vay. I know you're awake. Come over here."


	4. Thursday

The interior of the tent was black on black. There was such dead silence that the Courier wondered if he had spoken at all.

"Please," Daniel begged again from somewhere in that black.

Vay crawled over clumsily, groping in the dark, trying to recall the amount of room between them and remembering nothing. Two arms pulled her towards warmth and safety, enveloping her under the blankets and cradling her against his body like a precious thing.

Burying her face into his neck, Daniel in turn kissed Vay's hair and then her forehead.

"Goddamnit, Daniel," the Courier cursed quietly.

"Yes," Daniel laughed softly and cynically. "'It' and the both of us, in fact."

"I don't understand what you want."

He could practically hear the frustrated tears forming in her eyes.

"Just to hold you."

"And then ask me to stay away in the morning when what we're doing isn't obscured by the damned night?"

Daniel hushed her, kissed her hair again. "This is hardly a transgression."

"It's torture."

"You don't mean that."

The Courier grabbed at his groin. Daniel gasped.

"Yes I do. It's torture being so close to you. I feel this too-" Vay messaged his cock through the stiff material of his jeans, "-but I can't do anything about it." She expected him to stop her, but he didn't. "Don't kid yourself into thinking you're not the temptress around here. You've known for a long damn time that I'm wrapped around your finger, that I'd do anything for you, but you act like you're better or something holy. It's not fair."

"You'd like that," Daniel growled amid gasps and groans as the girl continued to rub along his shaft. The friction of the denim and cotton on his delicate skin started to burn, but he didn't care the drive for more was so consuming. "To be wrapped around my fingers, hot and- ah!" The man hit his head against the ground as the Courier's speed increased. "... and wet."

"You've got a dirty mind, preacher," Vay said, surprised by the imagery he had just painted. She moved her hands to try and blindly undo his belt in the dark, but Daniel did the work himself. Shuffling his jeans down to his knees, he then rolled onto his back.

"No, just..." Daniel pulled her hand from trying to snake under his temple garment and placed it over the underwear. "Like that. God yes, like that."

The Courier grasped his member through the thin fabric, stroking slowly, thumb rotating in circles as she moved up and down the shaft, all the while kissing the worn textile covering his chest. It was the light kisses which toyed with his mind as her hands toyed with his cock, her speed increasing, the electric feel of her fingers dulled only slightly by the fabric of his temple garment. The kisses were honest and telling. She'd let him fuck her senseless if he wanted.

"Stop." Daniel pulled her hand away and tugged at the button of Vay's pants. The Courier hurriedly obliged by pulling her cargo pants off. Before she could remove her underwear, however, the man moved over her, nestling himself between her legs and groaning as his member felt the heat of her core which burned through all the layers of their clothing. "God, you're so warm," Daniel sighed in her ear as her legs looped around his back.

Writhing against his veiled cock, Vay gyrated frantically to create the friction she craved while Daniel kept still and felt her move. Tossing her hips back and forth, the girl was overcome with sexual frenzy, making un-Godly noises at the slightest pressure near her clit, this being the first time she'd gotten any in far too long. She was soaking, desperate, overcome. Daniel began thrusting, mimicking that act they both craved, his lips finding hers and one hand finding a perfectly palm-sized breast. He flicked the nipple once through her shirt with his thumb and the girl cried out.

"Daniel, please," the Courier begged, her fingers moving downward on her own body between the both of them. "I need-"

"Don't touch yourself," Daniel ordered, pinning her wrist to the ground. He then readjusted himself so that he would better press against her lips and the womanly embrace they guarded. "You're not a whore."

The Courier balled her fists and spread her legs wider as Daniel alternately prodded and stroked her concealed core with his shaft. He loved how completely and eagerly she responded to him, sighing like nothing else mattered except that he keep pounding against her.

Entwining his fingers with hers at eye-level, Daniel held his cock against her pussy but stopped moving. The Courier moaned in protest.

"Do you ever touch yourself when you think of me?" he asked in her ear.

The Courier whimpered. "No. I want to, but I don't."

"You don't do that?"

Vay shook her head, though he couldn't see. "No."

Daniel pressed into her with abandon and the Courier screamed, legs trembling and body shaking. She hadn't reached climax: she'd only been surprised by the sudden thrust. Daniel, however, grunted as he felt release and soiled his temple garment.

"Damn it," he cursed, moving away in the black and leaving Vay to shiver against the cold and some very sensitive nerves. There was the sound of zippers releasing, clothing rustling, and then Daniel went out into the soft rain, leaving her alone.

Eventually he returned - and settled into the Courier's cot instead of coming back to her side. Emotionally and physically spent, Vay pulled the covers over her head and tried not to cry.


	5. Friday

Thursday morning started early, the rain continuing against a grey sky but hardly the downpour that it had been Wednesday afternoon. Daniel was lying in a bed of blankets, warm and waiting, when the Courier's eyes fluttered open from the opposite side of the tent. After staring at one another for a couple of minuets, Vay silently went about putting her clothes back in order and then she left.

Friday morning was all apologies. The sun was bright and high, making amends for the last couple of dreary days. A number of Sorrow tribals approached him, asking for some help to understand the lessons from a communal Bible which had been given out to make the rounds from family to family. Daniel spent an hour with the Sorrows, preaching and praying, able to forget for the moment the increased militancy among the inhabitants of Zion. With his flock in need of a shepherd once again, the man was able to do what he most loved: bring the word of God to those in need.

But then the Sorrows left and Daniel was alone. All that love and compassion and right-path living was just a memory. Reading from his scripture brought him little peace as he sat huddled in his tent. Daniel swore he could still smell the lingering fragrance of them together, holding and pleading, rocking, caressing. Putting his hat on, the man started walking towards the ranger station as the sun began to set.

When he knocked she didn't answer. Daniel let himself in and saw the Courier huddled up in some bed sheets on the couch, magazine sitting opened but ignored on her lap. The smell of coffee was thick in the air. 

"You know, at least with the Legion I knew where I stood," Vay said, looking at him from under a very furrowed brow. She wasn't surprised or pleased to see him. "I was a woman so I was a whore. That's how things worked: I was a whore, no body cared about me. But at least they were honest."

"And I was on a very sure path to paradise before you came here," Daniel countered, although it wasn't an accusation. He sat down on the couch across from her. "But I have been honest. I haven't lied to you."

"You sure as Hell have been lying to yourself."

Daniel looked at his hands, smiled a little at her wit. "Touché."

"I don't know why you're here, but I'm not in the mood," the Courier finally said after watching him for a while. "Not for apologies, not for olive branches. Let's face it: I mean, nothing can happen between us, right? I am an ignorant Gentile, and you are enlightened because celibacy is next to Godliness or whatever." Vay closed her eyes, took a deep breath. "Daniel, I'd like for things to go back to the way they were. I'd like to just be friends, but that isn't going to happen. And frankly it's your fault. You and your damned faith's inability to admit what you really want because you think self-denial makes you powerful or better than the rest of us. It doesn't."

"It's not so black and white as that. No matter what the scriptures tell us," Daniel added with a little smile, though only he appreciated the humor. "And celibacy is not something a missionary has to adhere to. In fact, our Church promotes a healthy family life. Children are a blessing, and we had many of them in New Canaan." The man sighed. "And we lost many of them in New Canaan."

The Courier tilted her head. He was making a point which was abstract yet foreboding. "Wait... you're afraid of getting me pregnant?"

Daniel was astonished at her short-sightedness and ego. "No. I lost my wife at New Canaan. She was with child."

Wordlessly, the girl stood up and the bed sheets fell away. The Courier was still wearing the shirt he had given her, like some kind of holy relic of their short time together. Daniel noted this sadly and sat her back down. He then settled onto the ground beside her knees, taking that position of pure spiritual obedience which was more natural to him than anything: kneeling. He prayed this final confession to her might lift the last bit of weight from his chest. "I lost my wife and my sister. Barely got my mother out."

"God, Daniel, I didn't know." The Courier took the hat from his head and ran her fingers through his hair. "I mean, I knew what happened there was bad, but... I'm so sorry."

Daniel nodded. "I'd gone to try and rescue Mordecai. My wife, mother and sister were all on their way out behind me. My mother said they ran back in to rescue some things. And get my gun to protect themselves from the White Legs. The house caught on fire, my sister was stuck inside. Sarah was shot when she came out, arms full of mementos, useless things. A bassinet I'd made, as though I couldn't make another. She was always so sentimental." Daniel shook his head with a small nostalgic grin and then kissed the Courier's knee. "Don't cry."

"I can't believe you didn't tell me," Vay frowned. Having never felt such selfless sorrow she couldn't help but cry. "It's so sad."

Moving so that he was resting between her knees, Daniel wrapped his arms around her waist, bringing them eye-to-eye. "But do you see? It isn't merely a matter of faith. Joshua once said that I was trying to fill the void they left, the void that all of New Canaan's destruction left in me, with you. Perhaps he was right. I miss my sister, my wife, my community. And now my role as spiritual adviser is hardly relevant. I suppose I built you up in my mind to be all the things that I've lost. Well, you wanted me to be honest."

The Courier had bowed her head, but when she looked back up it hadn't been because she was crying. "Don't worry: I'm laughing. We're both idiots, you know?" Vay wiped away her cooling tears. "Don't you see? I lost my only family too, sadistic and stupid as they are. Without the Legion, I've got nothing. I have you and Joshua but that's it. I don't even have a moral compass anymore. Right or wrong didn't matter before I met you guys, and now everything is upside down for me. I need you both."

"Yes, you need us. We men of God, faithful and obedient," Daniel mused pointedly, but the cynicism directed at her lack of faith became lost as the Courier began tracing soft circles on his temples with feathery strokes. He closed his eyes, thick dark lashes curling on his cheeks.

"Tell me about that obedience, Daniel. Tell me about those rules and obligations. What happened when you were bad?" Vay asked with the predictable sarcasm that particular subject promised. Ah, but the girl couldn't miss an opportunity to try and sway him, could she? Her fingers worked into his black, curling locks, messaging his scalp. Daniel's own hands subconsciously repeated the movements on the small of her back. His lips parted as his body was utterly soothed, every inch of him relaxed.

"I was a good boy, Vay," Daniel replied, surprisingly sober of mind despite how mentally elsewhere he appeared to be. "I was spared all that which you were made to suffer. Different strokes, I guess."

"What about your sister?"

"She was an angel."

"How about your wife? Did you ever have to whip out the rod with her? Maybe she laughed a little too much at one of the other men's jokes. Wore her dresses a little too short. Or tight."

Daniel laughed again, slowly and quietly. By the increase in pressure and speed at which her fingers worked, he could tell the Courier was becoming frustrated by his refusal to react to her provocations. It reminded him of the brat she'd been when she'd first come to Zion, desperate for attention. "My wife wore pants. But you should have seen how she filled out her temple garment."

Vay frowned. The man had a need for control which was insatiable, though she had never noticed how powerful this need was. He wasn't letting any of her tasteless comments get in the way of his having the upper hand. "How about me, Daniel?" The Courier moved her hands so that they were around his neck, her thumbs pressing on his windpipe. "If I were your wife, how would you punish me? I've been pretty bad, after all."

"Oh, the things I would do to you," Daniel growled, that sudden loss of authority driving him wild. The girl's obsession with punishment was almost laughable. He pulled her hands away and down between her knees, her ear coming up against his lips. "You would know how a woman is supposed to feel when pleasured by her husband, not plead for it like a slut with some stranger. Every night I'd strip you down to nothing. Heaven would be nothing compared to me between your legs." Closing his eyes, the man inhaled the clinging scent of campfire from her brown hair. "But you, my stubborn and insubordinate girl, would beg, playing with that beautiful hair and raising your skirt higher all through Mass on Sunday." 

Daniel let her wrists go and held her pretty, youthful face, his right thumb ghosting over her lips. The Courier eagerly took it in her mouth, her eyes closed as she lost herself in the fantasy.

"Bad, bad Vay. So sinful right in Church before God's eyes. I'd have to put you over my knee when we got home to our bedroom. Dress pulled up, underwear down around your knees: you would become so red and flushed as I taught you about obedience. Red and wet." He shoved the first two fingers of his left hand between the couch and her crotch, feeling her burn and twitch at the sudden movement. She inched towards his fingers and he curled them, scraping against her throbbing sex. The Courier groaned and Daniel pulled his slicked thumb from between her lips. He continued to flick his fingers against her clit and took her hands away when she tried to unfasten the button on her pants.

Finally she leaned against the back of the couch and spread her legs. Daniel smiled as Vay reacted helplessly to his wriggling fingers playing against her clothed core, the not-quite penetration torturous. Biting her lip, she put her hands in her hair, tossing it around and smiling at him through half-lidded eyes. He hadn't yet teased the Courier beyond her senses.

Daniel leaned in, rubbing furiously at her sex, and kissed her but Vay was too distracted to return the gesture, her eyes widening in reaction to this new speed.

"I'd finger you mercilessly," he whispered in her ear. "You'd cry out-"

"'Daniel, please!'" the Courier giggled playfully and then gasped in horror when he took his hand away. She met his eyes and saw pure desire.

"And then I'd put you on your hands and knees."

Vay moved into that position on the couch cushions, exposing herself as much as she could, wiggling her ass and breathing huskily as she listened to the clinking sounds of Daniel's belt. She felt him press against her, although of course he wasn't naked. The Courier looked over her shoulder as Daniel looked down at her, pushing against her desperately, the look on his face that of a lost man.

But the momentary loss of physical contact had reminded the Courier of reality like a blow to the gut. Before Daniel managed to find some rhythm, Vay clamored away, shaking. She looked at him, cold and horny, while the man wore a mask of surprise.

"No," the Courier put her foot down, arms around herself. "No more... dry-humping and leaving me out in the cold. This isn't your fantasy. I'm not your wife."

Daniel climbed off of the couch and went to her, pants clinging to his thighs. "I know. My wife would never let me fuck her from behind."

Vay was caught off guard. He was so close and she couldn't help herself: she touched his chest, hands. "You totally just said 'fuck'."

"Isn't that what you want?" Daniel grabbed her arms, forcing her attention to focus. "Don't you want me to fuck you?"

"Jesus, Daniel."

"Don't look at me like that. This is serious, Vay." The man relaxed his grip. "Think for one second what you're asking me."

The Courier shook her head and sat down on the second couch. She knew what she was asking of him and didn't care. What made it worse was that Daniel knew this. But she had one card left to play. "I'm asking you to give me something, anything, before I leave."

He looked at her skeptically. "Leave?" Daniel pulled his pants back up and sat down beside her. It seemed like a ridiculous notion, one last desperate attempt to catch him off his guard and gain some leverage.

"Yeah," Vay said. "I've been thinking about it since yesterday. No, wait, longer than that. Days. Look, I was sent here to kill Joshua. If I don't return with some kind of proof that I've done that, Caesar is going to send more men. He's obsessed with the idea of Joshua being dead right now because they're about to take the Dam. Or they were when I left. Which was months ago. If they've won, then he might just come here himself. The men will die, the women will become slaves. So yeah, I'm going to leave. I have to."

Daniel raised his brow in surprise. "If you convince him, will you be able to get back here?"

The Courier smiled sadly. "Probably not. If you wanted to start praying, you could ask the Big Guy to help the NCR win."

"I've been praying for that for a long time," Daniel said. "Have you spoken to Joshua about this?"

Vay leaned her head back against the couch. Now that the racing of her heart and hormones had finally stopped, she was exhausted. "I haven't talked to him in two weeks. You know, since you kicked me out of Paradise? I'll talk to him tomorrow, though. Talk to him, gear up and go."

"Tomorrow?"

Vay nodded. "If I wait any longer I won't go."

His hand rested on her knee. "This is what you need to do. This will be your absolution."

Her hand rested on his. "Well, it'll make me feel better knowing you guys will be safe, at least.”

The Courier leaned into him and despite herself felt sleep settling over her. It had been a restless night as she'd fretted over her decision and what Daniel was no doubt thinking about their latest indiscretion, never mind the ebb of adrenaline from what had just happened. And the steady beat of Daniel's heart was better than a lullaby.

Cradling her, the man listened to her breath and sleepy sighs. Daniel ached to know he'd never found such tranquility with God as he did with the Courier in his arms.


	6. Saturday

"No."

Night had passed into the early hours of Saturday morning and the Courier was alone. Having carefully placed her in bed Daniel had left her, though not without tucking her in like the thoughtful person that he was. Vay wasn't impressed. She didn't care for thoughts at the moment because thoughts and memories were all she was going to have soon enough. 

"That fucking-"

"Vay?"

Daniel appeared and leaned against the door frame which divided the bunk bed from the rest of the building. Having accepted long ago that he wouldn't break her of the habit of swearing, he opted instead to look quizzically bemused. "Were you cursing at something specific?"

"I thought you left." The Courier swung her legs out and sat on the edge of the bed. She was endlessly shocked to see that he hadn't gone. "How come you're dressed down?"

Daniel glanced down at his body, appearing to have forgotten that particle of truth. His usual plaid shirt was shed and his hat was sitting somewhere off in the other room. "Because I did leave you. I went to speak with Joshua. And it's raining."

He'd left and then came back. The Courier glowed inside. "Talked to Joshua, huh? What about?" 

"Call it a crisis of faith."

Vay smiled just a bit as the man sat down beside her. "Really?"

"Joshua says there's no need for you to return to the Mojave." Daniel inched back towards the wall and leaned against it. "It's an unnecessary risk. He's dealt with Caesar’s assassins before and doubts that he would bring his men here." He ran a hand over his face and sighed. "Although after talking to him, part of me wonders if that's what Joshua wants."

The Courier looked back at the man over her shoulder. "I should have let him kill Salt-Upon-Wounds. He could have had some closure."

"No," Daniel said shaking his head. He looked tired. "Killing Salt-Upon-Wounds himself would have made all his rage seem justified. Although as it is he is a bit bitter that he didn't do it himself."

"I figured I owed him something." Vay looked away. "I wanted to tell Joshua the truth about me and my past. I thought if I killed Salt-Upon-Wounds he'd understand somehow."

"You're half-right," Daniel said. "Joshua said he recognized some of your fighting tactics as 'Legion-esque'. Noticed it when you were fighting your way towards Three Marys."

"Yep: that's what happens when instinct takes over," the Courier snorted. "You get careless. Of course Joshua recognized that attack! Lucius taught- Anyways. I never realized how angry he was at Caesar. I mean, it should have been pretty obvious. Killing the White Legs was all about getting back at Caesar. I guess I thought he was above that: the sin of wrath."

"That's why you have to go," Daniel all but whispered. "If they do come here in numbers I'm afraid of what it will mean for Joshua. It'll be an excuse for him to take out what's left of his pain and anger on the Legion and that fire does not need any more fuel."

Vay stared at him, stunned that he seemed to think he needed to explain this. "I know."

"Yes. I guess you do know how hot that blaze can burn being ex-Legion yourself." Daniel changed positions. Laying down on the bed proper he noticed with some astonishment that the old mattress was actually more comfortable than his own bed. "You know, I really need to take some time and devote myself to a tyrannical leader bent on bending the will of the people to his law. All my friends have done it. I feel like I'm missing out."

Vay raised a brow. Daniel read the look.

"If you're going to make a comparison between Jesus Christ and Caesar I'm going to leave right now."

The Courier grinned. "So you said a crisis of faith, huh?"

"Joshua said, and I quote, 'It's about time'."

"Ha!" Vay's head fell back as she giggled. "That's awesome."

Daniel looked very serious. "I don't think it is."

Crawling up beside him, the Courier nestled herself into his chest as his arms looped around her. She still couldn't believe he was there with her, or that he could stand to touch her given what he knew about her. "I don't want you to feel guilty about wanting to be with me. Just show me how you feel."

Daniel sighed. "There are other ways to express how I feel than... that."

"Ha, really? Not where I'm from."

"Isn't that the whole point? That I'm not like one of those men?"

Vay frowned. He was right. "Well damn."

Daniel kissed her hair line. "Promise me you'll be careful. And leave if you get the chance. I don't care if you can't get back here, just get away from those men."

"I'm really scared of going back there," the Courier lamented with a weak smile. Caesar wasn't the thing which truly terrified her, although the very mention of his name brought many to fearful hysterics. Vay had been sent by the leader of the Frumentarii and it was he who she would have to deal with when her deficiencies became known to the Legion. What he would do to her for her failure was beyond her imagination. "Who knows what's going to happen?"

With a little manoeuvring, Daniel positioned them on their sides, Vay's back facing him. He kissed the tiny bit of ear that was poking through her hair. "You're going to come back here to us. You are going to keep fishing in the rivers, hunting with the Sorrows. You'll see the miracle of God's might. Everything will be alright."

"That'd be nice," Vay said dreamily, appreciating the feel of his breath ticking the flesh of her ear. "I could make my own stuff. Trade with the tribals or the caravans. Fix this place up. Start wearing those skimpy outfits the Sorrows wear."

"That would make more sense in this humid climate." Daniel grinned into her hair, but it was short-lived: the thought of all these nice things that would never be was incredibly painful. "Stay here with us. I can protect you."

"Daniel, don't," the Courier begged. She closed her eyes as she tried to close her mind out to that option as a possibility. "Don't go there. Joshua is the one who needs to be protected. Don't pretend like his life is less important to you than mine. I know it's not. You'd do anything to help him."

He thought about this, meditating as though it was a holy instruction. "That's true. Joshua is a good friend and a great man. But do you know what else?" Daniel's fingers traced patterns over her stomach. "You're nothing like my wife was. Or my sister. Joshua was wrong. It's you I hold in my heart, not the memories of them. And the thought of not being able to be there for you..."

"It's okay." Vay turned and smiled a little. She didn't often lie for the sake of others, but she thought she was getting pretty good at it. "I'll be okay."

Daniel knew that she wouldn't be. These monsters from the Mojave would sense her weakness and destroy her. If Vay stayed they could protect her and he knew it. But Daniel also knew that at the end of this dangerous road lay that forgiveness and peace which her soul craved. If the Courier remained in Zion, she would become restless, reckless, beaten down by the guilt until she reverted to her old self, and that thought was far more terrifying. Daniel had seen what that kind of behaviour led to: the senseless massacre of the White Legs and little tranquility for Joshua. For the sake of her immortal soul, Daniel had to let the Courier go and make amends.

A dull yellow glow from the other room highlighted the sudden and determined actions of Daniel's hands as he shed his pants and tee-shirt. Looking over her shoulder and noticing what he was doing, the Courier mirrored his movements. The old mattress creaked and groaned under the shifting weight of the couple as they pulled off their clothing. 

Vay's nearing nakedness caused Daniel to sigh silently with something like lamentation as he had wanted to be the one to slowly take her clothes off and drop them on the floor. He wanted to pamper and spoil her like the precious thing he had never expected to find in a dirty Mojave gentile. But the sooner he had satisfied her, the sooner he could go back to holding her against his chest and dreading the dawn.

Without a doubt the missionary wanted her, but Vay's impending departure didn't cause a desperate ache for her body, rather just a simple pain in his heart. Daniel couldn't imagine actually going through with it, this act upon which he placed the predictable and unparalleled amount of importance. The idea of sharing this intimacy just to watch her go the next day made it seem too tawdry and desperate and the girl deserved better. Vay deserved a hell of a lot more than she would ever get.

They kissed, slow and deep because each thought that was what the other wanted. The Courier's mind was also racing ahead to when she would be recalling these tender moments and was therefore missing the actual event, so afraid of the future as she was. Vay tugged at Daniel's white undergarments just to remind herself that they were together, and soon these were gone too. The man lay there in the dark looking up at her, naked, confident and comfortable. His muscles were soft but evident, dark hair sweeping down his chest and thickly gracing his stomach. It reminded the Courier of the ten years he held over her: she was by no means a child, but he was even less so.

Leaning over she kissed his chest, an automatic gesture rather than a romantic one, when a nervous giggle suddenly burst out from her. The Courier wanted to tell him how handsome he was, just the most goddamned sexy thing she'd ever seen, but couldn't. So she giggled.

"Well thanks," Daniel's lips twitched into a smile as the young girl laughed. "Now it's your turn."

He gently pulled her down onto the mattress and discarded her underwear without hesitation, fingers skimming along her skin as he pulled the clothing away. Daniel didn't need to tell her of the times he'd been with his wife, the long afternoons where they'd done nothing but make love: that had been their right as husband and wife, after all. Daniel was not a stranger to sex.

He placed himself between her legs. Although startled by his quick pace, the Courier was pleased: she couldn't imagine taking the lead at the moment. Luckily Daniel thought that, as he was the man, this was his duty, and he kissed her how he wanted; quickly and constantly, on her lips, cheeks, eyes. Finally upon returning to her lips he changed the tempo and kissed her like he had in the tent when he'd been a desperate man. But his actions were guided by his head, not his heart. Daniel couldn't quiet his mind no matter how hard he tried. Vay rocked her body against his, humming happily as they kissed and kissed and-

"Daniel, what's wrong?"

A rush of cold air all around followed as the man rolled over onto his back and lay beside her. He groaned in a defeated tone she'd never heard from him. "I'm sorry, Vay. I can't."

"Do you want me to..."

But Daniel took her hand away from his limp member as she tried to bring it to life. He pressed her knuckles to his lips. "I don't... think that's going to help."

She couldn't stand it: the way she caressed his cheek with the hand he had just kissed like that apology was enough; how his sad eyes were framed by those thick lashes that made them seem even bigger and sadder. The Courier wasn't mad, merely broken hearted. Just as she had tried to convince Joshua Graham of her past through actions of violence, Vay was sure she could have explained all she felt towards Daniel through giving herself to him. Now he would never understand. "Fine. It's okay."

The metal springs of the bed jabbed at her as she lay down once more beside him. Sleep and then departure. Vay really couldn't blame Daniel for it, and the sight of his naked, mostly willing form was an admission of just how much he had tried despite how wrong it all must have seemed in the heart of the missionary. In the same way that she would pack away her medical supplies and food stuffs for the journey, the Courier tucked away these thoughts and images for later sustenance. He cared about her, and that was more than she had ever expected from anyone.

Suddenly Daniel moved over her once more and the Courier made a hesitant sound against her teeth. "No, Daniel, you don't have to try, it's-"

He tilted his head and he looked at her with the softest expression. "Hush, Vay."

The man didn't kiss his way down her chest, stomach and abdomen like her fantasies, but this was still more charitable attention than she had ever received down there. Sprawling her legs out, she grabbed for the metal bars of the bed's frame and held her breath as Daniel licked at her folds, noting her scent. He didn't really know what to do, and she didn't know what to expect, but the Courier was shivering with every hesitant touch he granted her. His wife had never let him do this, though he'd wanted to. Daniel spread Vay's lips with his fingers and without ceremony buried his tongue in her, his facial hair scraping against her delicate skin. In and out, his tongue was a wet, weak echo of what his cock would have accomplished but it had the girl crying and writhing against the damp bed sheets. Her toes curled, she could hardly breathe, and then Daniel remembered her clit. He flicked at it with his tongue and then began sucking at the nub artlessly and without rhythm. The sensation was too much, and utterly alien to her. Vay pulled away, afraid of the weightlessness, the completely electrical feeling that had her shaking and tossing about without control. Daniel looked up at her alarmingly and chuckled when he realized she wasn't used to a lover selflessly trying to please her. She was far more familiar with men using her body for their own gains. Of course, there was nothing funny about this: it was just pitiful and perhaps a little unsurprising. Vay was facing the wall, laying in the fetal position, and silently trying to sink into the mattress. No, nothing funny at all.

Sliding up behind her, Daniel sunk his thumb into her, wiggling it slowly. This calmed the Courier and brought her back into her body more than she had ever been, but she wasn't in the moment anymore and Daniel knew it. The Courier wouldn't meet Daniel's gaze. Taking his hand away, he pulled her to him, his palms covering her in caresses but nothing too intrusive. "Are you alright?" A light peck to her shoulder.

Vay's voice was small. "Can we just lay here now?"

The missionary was not so easily daunted. So strange that he would be the one to continue this, that she was the hesitant one. But he had something to prove, his current impotence an unbearable affront to his manhood. The fingers of his right hand snaked over her thin hip and wriggled its way between her legs, but with a swift motion of her pelvis the Courier dislodged him.

"You really don't want this?" Daniel asked, utterly shocked. Vay rolled over so that they were facing one another. He couldn't understand how she felt because she didn't even know. She didn't know why she was so afraid of that blissfully besieging pressure which made her mind go blank. Of course it was new: no man had ever touched her like that. Why couldn't he just fuck her like all the rest, impersonal and greedily? She wanted to see him satisfied, and that look of love grace his features for even just a second. Vay didn't understand. 

Such ignorance was a sin. Or maybe it was the other sinful act that was getting in the way. Dare she tell Daniel what the nuns at the orphanage had done to them if they had even the slightest inkling of an impure thought? No, she would never talk about any of that with him again.

"I'm satisfied," Vay said at last, and though the words sounded hollow she meant it as much as she possibly could. He hadn't done much and yet he had been the most giving lover among a handful of men. He had been perfect compared to everyone else. Leaving him was going to kill the Courier.

Daniel kissed her with damp, fragrant whiskers. He covered their bodies with the sheets. Laying there in the silence, listening to one another breathe, it was the happiest Daniel had been in a long time and the most content the Courier had ever been. And if either had tried to explain it to the other, the words would have fallen on disbelieving ears.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally for the Fallout Kink Meme. Re-reading this, all I can say is... man, I've come far.


End file.
